


The Art of Wasting Our Time

by grumpysimon



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: 1960's, AU, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Multi, New York City AU, ish?, trigger warning (minor)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-01-11 03:23:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 11,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1168068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpysimon/pseuds/grumpysimon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>" New York. The city of a million stories. Half of them are true, the other half just haven't happened yet."<br/>River Song is living "almost" alone, working as a photographer and finding any odd jobs on the street. She is lonely, but she would rather die than live in a boring sort of life. The Doctor (Formally known as John Smith, but he hates the horrible cliche of the name that the orphanage he spent the majority of his life living in gave him,) is working as a writer with barely enough money to get by. He's just lost his two closest friends- a young couple with the name of Amy Pond and Rory Williams, and it is a shock for him to find himself alone in the world. So he wanders around the city, day and night, scribbling down all his ideas in a bound leather notebook, thinking this is how he will find his end- until he may or may not accidentally meeting the sun in the heart of a young photographer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. odds and ends

**Author's Note:**

> So here's the first chapter. It's not fabulous, but I was screwing around with POV and all sorts of those fun things. Chapter two should be up in just a few days, I'm really struggling with writing about River and making sure she is in character. I hope you enjoy it! I love all kinds of feedback!  
> <3 Kenzie

He first met her in the summer in the city of New York. He didn't have much of an official job, but his passion was writing and he spent his days writing odds and ends of novels and poetry. He never tried to get much published, because in the time the only thing that publishers were looking for was horrible steamy romances, like color copies of the others - barely literature at all. He was frustrated with the whole ordeal and barely could scrape up enough money to pay for his exhaustively small apartment. It wasn't living a life of gold, but it was what he wanted. He had lost his closest friends since as long as he could remember - a couple with the name of Amy and Rory. He was blinded with loss, even if it had not been his first. He knew that the pain would pass, just as it had done with Rose and Donna, and as it would do with others

 

She had the wildest bouncy curls, and she flirted with everyone she could get her eyes on. Her name was River Song, and she found her passion in photography. She worked odd jobs, anything she could find. She also sold her pictures, but it was a fortune to get them developed. She was brash with anyone who dared to criticize her lifestyle. ('She's only a young dreamer, after all.')

 

His family was dead and long gone, and he had so little memories of them. More of his mother, and so very much less of his father. He was terribly young when he had been orphaned and put in an orphanage. But not a single person wanted to adopt a child like himself. He just didn't fit the "cute and obnoxious" cliche that every parent wanted. He didn't even know his name. So his nickname became "the Doctor," even though it was terribly hard to explain that. ("I'm the Doctor!" "Doctor who?" They'd ask. "What does it mean to you? Just the Doctor, if you please.")

 

The beeping of the alarm clock snapped his eyes open. He wasn't the type to linger at home. He wanted to be out and see the world, so he was up in an instant, dressing himself in the clothes that made him happy. The bow-tie around his neck represented him more than anything. The alarm clock was a terribly old thing, a buy from a thrift- store that he'd bought ages ago. He was sure to smack it to turn it off extra hard, in hopes that it would break so he would finally have an excuse to replace the damned thing. 

 

He almost forgot the glasses before he ran out the door into the bright sunshine. Old, round things, looking like they belonged in a Harry Potter book. But they, being one of his few possessions, were his favorite. They used to be Amelia's. He'd always teased her endlessly about her reading glasses, but he secretly adored them. She had known him the best since he'd lost Rose. He missed his friends, and he hoped that wherever they were that they were happy.

 

River Song woke up to cars honking outside the window and the sounds of coffee versus tea being argued over. She shared an impossibly tiny apartment with a friend, Clara, whom she didn't know too well at all. Clara had invited a friend over, a woman with her hair pulled back. River scowled at the hairstyle. It was practically impossible for her to put her hair into a ponytail, much less something like that.

 

"This is Martha, by the way. Martha, River. River, Martha." Clara said, introducing the two.

 

"Hello." River said, sitting down at the worn coffee table. "And, I personally, prefer tea." Martha groans. A normal start to a completely unnatural day with the life of a girl named River Song.

 

The Doctor, on the other hand, walks out in the bright sunshine, with the noises you'd find in any regular city. People chattering, cars honking, lives being made, lives being destroyed. All these people were important and brought a light to the world. He'd never met anyone who wasn't important, and he was sure it would continue that way.

 

River ate as fast as she could, dressing herself in the quickest things she could find on the floor, and getting out of there. She couldn't stand being there for anytime longer. She loved crowds, and she loved the noise, and she loved the feeling of being surrounded by people whose lives were completely and utterly unconnected with hers, but the one thing that she hated most was a domestic life. The feeling of being stuck in an endless cycle - wake up, go to work, go home: following that being sleep, and repeating it all over again. 

 

Over and over again until the day you croak in a sleep full of dreams of idiotic things. River Song promised to herself every morning that she would never, never, ever fall into that.

Even if it meant being alone for the rest of her life


	2. roses bookmarked in the pages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More in the life of the Doctor, and River Song, and how they both get by in the city where both dreams are created and broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one should be longer than the last one! Sorry that probably won't meet until chapter 3 or 4, because that scene is taking a gazillion years to write. Grr! <3 Kenzie  
> Also! Sorry that the spacing is somewhat off, but the update thingie is being a complete idiot. I'm sorry if it bothers you!

Amongst suns and stars and collisions of it all  
there was a girl  
who had a mind full of ideas  
and a head of blond hair  
and she, eventually  
created a collision of her own

 

The Doctor was beginning to realize that writing terrible poetry was his second best talent. Writing terrible poetry about Rose Tyler was his first best talent. But after all the years of knowing her, then mourning her, then just plain old missing her, he'd never found the right way to move on. She was a beautiful girl, and they'd traveled all over the world together, from stargazing in Africa and wandering through mazes of streets in Europe, she'd most likely become the person who'd known him better than anyone else.

 

Which is why when they fought one day, and she'd got on a ship to somewhere far away. -Somewhere where he was supposed to go with her.- But the end of it wasn't then, because weeks later he'd gotten a letter in the mail in clean, neat print claiming that Rose Tyler was dead.

 

At first he hadn't believed it, thinking it was one of her silly ways to get back at him and she was just hiding outside the door with a mischievous grin on her face. But there was no sound of Rose's keys in the door, and all the light drained from the world. Hard to stop and smell the roses when the only Rose was dead.

 

The Doctor was almost to the point of tears by then. So he looked up at the sun in the sky, and thought to himself: it's a good day to be alive. It's a good day to be a person, and even if it's not the best day to be alone, it's a good day for him to be here. He would "keep on truckin'," so to speak. Because eventually there will be another girl with another name, and Rose Tyler will be left in the pages and in the water. She wouldn't even cross his mind. At least, that was what he was hoping.

 

Working by finding any job on a day by day basis was- well, imagine the hardest job position you could ever think of, and then multiply it by ten. River Song could find any job and do it in a acceptable, payable way, and then she would take her earnings and split it- half in a jar so she could get a place of her own, and the other half to pay Clara so that she would have somewhere to live. 

 

She was a jack of all trades, but in a perfect world she would be taking photos of all the things that should be captured- the red haired girl sitting in front of her apartment, waiting for someone, the sunset where it wasn't the over-photographed color of orange- but when it was pink, blue and purple; all the unexpected colors. She wanted to take pictures of the artist painting and drawing for his food and rent on the corner, because he had decided on a passion and there was no way in heaven or hell he was going to give that up. Not for the world.

 

River was seeing the entire world through the lens of a camera with pieces that were bound to fall off soon, and she would assure you, that it was a different view than you could get anywhere else. Because with a camera, you could adjust the lighting and make the darkest day seem brighter, and you could make a crowd of a million people mean nothing by just simply making their part of the shot blurry. River liked control of that. She liked knowing that she could do anything with the world and make it her own. 

 

The Doctor sometimes felt like he was running. He felt like he was running from his past; from Rose Tyler, and Amy Pond, and Rory Williams, people who he had cared for, and even though somewhere deep down he knew that their deaths were not his fault, he still felt somehow responsible for them. If he hadn't have fought with Rose, she wouldn't have left without him, and maybe the circumstances would've changed, maybe the boat would not have sank. Maybe she'd have stayed. Maybe he'd have her there right then, in his arms, and he wouldn't look in the mirror and see a completely different man than Rose Tyler had known. And maybe, Amy and Rory wouldn't be dead and he wouldn't feel like someone had taken one of those huge ice-cream scoopers he'd seen in the parlor on the street corner, and dug into him, taking everything substantial that he had left. He felt like nothing, and he felt unimportant. He was just blending in with the background of everything else. He didn't feel like he mattered.

 

River was wandering through the streets, looking for some sort of position or something that she could do. Maybe today she wouldn't find anything, and that would be one step backward until she could finally be on her own, and she could be happy. But at least, on the bright side, she would spend the day high up- maybe in a tree or something, looking around and thinking of something that she might be able to take pictures of, when developing photographs was cheaper.

 

River Song probably wouldn't be so damn poor if she hadn't have spent so much money on the fanciest camera she could buy, after a breakup with some stupid boy. So her best friend, Jack, took her out and they went shopping, and even though she shouldn't have spent that money on that damn camera, she would not have to share some cheap-o apartment with some friggin' girl that giggled about how much she hated River when she thought River was asleep. Who made her feel inferior and imperfect. 

 

So she kept the stupid, expensive camera, and saved as much money as she could spare to develop photos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of chapter 2! Feedback? Comments? Swears about my writing talent? I'll take anything! Leave me a comment or email me at kurostucklockedhuntingdemon@gmail.com


	3. books clutched to our chests and fires in our hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River likes doing dangerous things. She also, as widely known, loves doing photography. After a long day of hard work, the two seem to combine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> River is a bit OOC in this chapter. There might be some emotions, sorry 'bout that kiddos! I hope you enjoy it, and I would really enjoy some constructive criticism for this story. Also, I am currently taking prompts for ficlets, so message me at  
> riversongsend.tumblr.com  
> if you want one!  
> <3 Kenzie

River Song could enjoyed doing things that were semi-illegal. She liked getting in trouble. She liked the looks she got when she did things that weren't the most "socially acceptable." So she wore her skirts and dresses too short, used red lipstick religiously, and flirted with most of the boys that populated New York City. It's terribly boring to spend your entire day picking up trash in overall icky places across the city. But she had herself some money, and since she may have flirted a tad bit with some of the people who were in charge of doing the work position, she got a few more dollars than she normally would of. So she had enough money to take and develop more photos. So she decided that she was going to do things that were possibly semi-illegal, and take some photos. Which of course, was a bad idea. Some people could get away with breaking the law because they hadn't done it before, but River Song was not a low profile character in the specific city of New York.

 

"Oh well." She said. "I guess I'm just going to have to spend a little bit in jail...." She grinned.

 

That is how River Song found herself, camera in hand in a suspended platform- high above the city. River had done some simple work in high-city window cleaning, which could be referred to as experience, if the definition of experience is a day of shaky legs and mentally writing your own will. The sounds of the city swept up and swirled all into one, like when someone is cooking many things on the floor below you. It was beautiful in a detonating bomb sort of way. That was River's favorite kind of beautiful.

 

"Alright." River said to herself. "I promise I'm never doing anything like this again. I'm just going to get a stable job like a normal person. I'm going to go to school and get a degree in something stable and well paying. I'm going to get married, and get settled down. This is the last time. I promise you!" She shouted, out to the city. It was a promise. She, of course, was lying. What she really wanted to do was get a degree in archaeology- something which she knew was practically impossible, and she wanted to travel all over the great world, and she wanted to take photos and embrace the greatness of all of it.

 

She wanted to capture the world in a single shot, she wanted to absorb all of it, but she just- she just knew that it wasn’t going to be possible. She wanted to be realistic with herself and not let herself down. It was her own job to take care of her own self. A prince wasn’t going to swoop in and save her. That was what they wanted women to believe in this world, though. That was what she’d been taught to believe from the day that her house had burned down and she’d been thrown in to an endless spiral of maniacs and heroes and learning that there was no line between the good and the evil in the world.

 

The Doctor had a book clutched to his chest. It wasn’t an unexpected sight for someone as bookish as himself, but the book that he was holding wasn’t just any old book. It was a newspaper clipping of the Doctor’s past. To be specific; it was Amelia’s book. Amelia Pond had written the book, and Amy Pond had dedicated the book to himself and Rory.

The Doctor owned a copy of everything Amelia had written, of course (even first drafts and scribbles and bits of indecipherable babble, but the book that he had clutched to his chest at the moment was Amelia’s first book. He had a copy, but he’d gotten a sudden urge to buy himself a copy that was not partially edited and filled with notes that Amy and himself had written to each other as they’d passed it around during the final weeks before the publishing.

 

It was beautiful to see it- a sleek hardcover copy, unlike the other which had coffee stains and stupid scribbles on it that they’d drawn while they were sitting in the sunshine in the park of the Doctor’s first copy. When he’d seen it on the shelf- it was a feeling of victory. Not just that it was still being published, but that he’d been lucky enough to have the person closest to him trap what was left of herself in words, so he could hold onto forever.

 

“Thank you, Amelia Pond.” He’d remembered at the time that it was still a newborn of a piece of writing, when she’d sat in front of her old blue typewriter and began to type it out in awful grammar, while the Doctor and Rory sat behind her, laughing as she’d read it out loud. Writing was how he’d met Amy, after all. They’d been awkward and young then, quiet in a receptionist’s office, with ideas and completely different manuscripts. Both of them looked like they hadn’t slept in weeks- Donna had been working the Doctor to death to finish his deadline.

 

“Is this your first novel?” The Doctor asked Amy. She nodded. “I’m just meeting with the editor today… They haven’t even said they want to work with me yet.” Amelia said, with a strong Scottish accent.

 

After a moment of awkward silence, Amy repeated the question back to him. “Is this your first?” The Doctor nodded. “They said they’d work with me, but I don’t think that they still like it.” He said. It was sci-fi, and it had no romance, which was what they were looking for. He’d made up his entire universe, with time travel and aliens and mysteries, and all things in between.

 

They never actually published the book. They read the manuscript, and they turned him away. The Doctor supposed that they had been hoping for something more than just adventure. It was shallow- the Doctor thought. So many writers with unmatchable talent were turned away because they were not enough for literature. It saddened him. But the Doctor was going to grow old, and his book was going to be treasured some day. His story was going to be treasured some day. He was going to be dead one day- and he was going to leave himself in the pages, just like a bookmark. He hoped he wouldn’t die off, he hoped he would live forever and he would be something of a legend.

 

River Song didn’t expect she’d have so much time up there. But eventually the man who was working there was going to return from his lunch break, and he was going to go and call the police and then River would be done for.  
She wasn’t lying when she said that she did not care.


	4. the anti-endings man and his bed full of stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River Song makes bad decisions, and the Doctor regrets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is finally up! I'm sorry it took so long, I'm becoming professional at procrastinating and sometimes wording vaguely like Hussie. Oops. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy it. Again, I would love constructive criticism, comments, blah blah blah.  
> <3 Kenzie

River Song had made a mistake, she was realizing as someone began pulling her down from that height. How River had thought herself into such bad situations was still a mystery. Even though some ideas- at first, at least seem like they are kind of bad, maybe you'll get away with it, blah blah; River had definitely under thought about this one. She had a criminal record already. She couldn't go into jail, she'd lose her home, and she'd get out with no money and no place to sleep. River Song had gotten herself into a lot of deep crap before, but still.

    The Doctor was almost home, and he hated it. But he needed to get home, he had a manuscript to work on. The light was also fading from the sky as if someone had dropped a freshly printed page into water. He loved this city at night, though. He would've stayed out there, in the dimming light, forever. It was early fall in the city and the wind was blowing, with crisp tales of a winter that was inevitable to come. The Doctor was tired. It was three days until the four month anniversary of Amelia and Rory's death. Hardly could call it an anniversary- that was something that had a happy connotation coming with it, and this was anything but happy.

    River closed her eyes on the way down. Being high up there had been mesmerizing, but the way down was like the stomach-drop of a rollercoaster taken at the slowest speed one could imagine. River felt sick, and nervous, but River wasn't going to let them see that. A crowd was gathering below, watching as a woman with a little too short of a dress and a kill 'em smile was being pulled from high above with a camera in her hand. The pastors-wife sort of women were whispering to each other behind their hands, looking disapproving, and the rich men's type of wives were standing there, judging at River Song's dirty dress and simply scandalous knee high boots. The men standing at the scene turn their ladies' heads away from all of it, acting as if they were witnessing a murder scene, not just a woman who they didn't find to their liking.

    "Hello, sweetie." She said into the face of the police officer who had been called when the window-washer returned. He scowled. "Ma'am, may I ask what you would happen to be doing up there?" He said, a quick motion to the building. "Whore!" Someone shouted from the back. The rest weren't brave enough with their stick figure waists, so they stuck with giving disapproving looks. River brushed it off. These people didn't matter to her. If they were in a photo, they would be nothing but blurry space. Fillers. Nothing to her now, nothing to her ever. "Isn't it obvious?" She said, with her best winning smile. "I was taking some photographs of this marvelous city." She said, lifting up her camera for her audience to see. They had her attention now, oh yes they did. All passerby had stopped to stare, mouths open in some ugly mixture of disgust and awe. Behind all of them, on the opposite sidewalk, there was a man who didn't stop, however. He was clutching a book in his arms and he had that sort of  _I know where I'm going_ look in his eye. He was wearing a bow-tie, oh god help us all, and he looked like the man who could trip over the air.  _  
_

River dismissed it, and kept on with the show. River knew she loved three things- photography, history, and causing a scene. She was best mostly at the causing a scene part of all of it. "Miss, I'm afraid I'm going to have to take you in for the night-" He was about to begin the whole spiel, but River cut him off. "Blah blah blah, right to remain silent, blaaah. Urg, kill me. Just put the handcuffs on and get on with it!" She yelled. Several of the women gasped, but the lawyer's wives just snickered. They were new fashioned, and they had all sorts of similarities to River Song, but they were anything but allies, thank you very much.

   River resisted the urge to bow as the cop put the handcuffs on her, a bit too tight. They always did it that way, maybe because they knew that it would chafe River's wrists in turn for causing such of a scene to such an amount of people. 

    The Doctor ignored the crowd completely, even the woman in the middle of it with the curly blond hair and the officer rolling his eyes at her. It was something interesting, he knew that, but he wasn't exactly in the mood. In books, characters seem like they always have one emotion for a long while and it transitions occasionally- but that wasn't how it worked. Real people had all types of emotions swirling around and battling each other. Most of the time you just feel grey all of the time, somewhere in between the lines. 

  He shoved his key into the door, it sticking in the same spot like it always did. He flopped onto his bed, closing his eyes and imagining that he could've just said goodbye one more time. But it wouldn't have changed anything. No one likes endings, especially this man named the Doctor. 

   "Do I even have a purpose, anymore?" He said to no one, staring up at the ceiling. "Why do I even matter?" He whispered to himself. The people he'd mattered to always left, and then, time after time he was left without a sense of purpose. If someone could have answered at that moment, they would've whispered with the voices of the gone in his ear, telling him things that he once knew to be true, but he'd long since forgotten. He was hardly the Doctor, anymore. He was hardly anyone. He was just space. Space and wasted time. 

    Jail was freezing cold. Especially for a woman who didn't believe in jackets. It was a small jail, and they were checking their records for a woman with the name of River Song. They'd find her, eventually. Arrested for thievery, picking fights, dumb things and dumb ideas that River Song had somehow thought that she could get away with. River always liked to be alone because she said that she didn't have to make promises to anyone. But she was forgetting, that even when you are alone, you still have to make promises to yourself- an it was slowly crumbling and destroying her.


	5. getting a head start on life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River dismisses, and River Song hears, and River realizes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got it released waaaay before my deadline! It's a gift for the 164 (!!!) hits that I've gotten on this, which to me, is like, a million. Thank you all so much, and I hope you enjoy it!  
> <3 Kenzie  
> And again, I am very sorry about the spacing. I fix it again and again, but it just resets. I'm sorry if it messes with your reading, it definitely messes with mine!

Days will keep trucking on, even when your heart is broken even when someone is dead, even when you spend the night drunk, cold or alone. River spend her night thinking about the whole idea of that, and the feeling that your heart gets when you finally realize that we're all just blurry pictures in the background, always the person who did so much for history but was never remembered. Maybe they were almost there; maybe some man was spending his entire life obsessing over that said life story, writing their biography when he died the death of someone who wanted to remember- an early one. You were so, so close to being remembered, but you ended up being lost in the curly scrawl of a dreamer.

 

Clara posted bail for River in the morning, once they realized that River had not a single family member and hardly anyone to call a friend. Clara, her damned room mate was the only one left. The only people awake at that deathly moment of the morning were the few drunk stragglers and the occasional extra early morning commuter who gripped onto their cup of coffee like it was some kind of life support, with eyes that said that they regretted being trapped in such a cycle. That was why River Song was so scared to go after dreams like studying archaeology, or making friends or even getting something like a serious day to day job. It was her biggest fear.

 

"I can't believe you." Clara said, after walking in awkward silence for what seemed like an eternity.

 

"She speaks!" River replied sarcastically. She wasn't in the mood to be yelled at. People say stupid things like "why don't you just not do things like that?", but it's not that easy. They don't seem to understand. River was a naturally destructive person, and she would destroy everything she could get her hands on, and she kept feeling like she couldn't stop it: she couldn't control it. "I'll be out by noon, my things are mostly packed anyway, I don't have all that much." River said, serious now. She knew the drill. River knew that it was all going to happen eventually, and then there was going to be the few days on the streets, looking for someplace to stay.

 

River's life was just a pile of bad decisions and stories with people she'd loved and lied to- stories that were torn and burned.

 

"I'm not going to kick you out. I don't leave people out on the streets. That's not who I am, River Song." Clara said calmly in reply to both of her comments. "But what I do want to know, most of all, is why." She said.

 

"What do you mean, why, Clara?" River practically growled. "Why am I such a fuck up? Why do I continue to do things like this?" River could have cried, but she wouldn't dare show something like that to anyone, especially Clara. She had much to thank her for, since she'd posted bail and all.

 

Clara dismissed the profanity. "Why are you so destructive to yourself? You are so, so much of a person- and you hardly seem to care. It's cheesy, but you are a shining star, so to speak, and you waste it all-" Clara was about to say more, but River cut her off. She didn't want to hear any more of it. She was done with it. The entire mass of them needed to shut up.

 

River was done with knowing that they were only saying those things because they wanted to make themselves feel better; they didn't really care. River Song didn't really matter to them.

 

The Doctor hadn't gotten any work done on his manuscript. But at least he'd slept- he wouldn't say he'd slept well, it was filled with the types of the nightmares that weren't frightful ones; they were the type of nightmares that were past you tried so hard to forget. He'd missed so many people that had slipped from his grasp. If only there was a way to just make it all stop. He was a tired man, and his mind had aged so much farther than his body had. 

 

Clara had plans for River Song. She had so many ideas for this amazing woman, for this woman who had so very much potential but had simple refused to see it, refused to go along with it. She was fighting a war with herself, that woman. She was wearing herself down, and soon the woman named River Song would be nothing but dust- and then she would finally be free. 

 

When the Doctor felt like there was nothing left of him, he saved himself by books. He trapped himself in the pages of something fictional, learning and feeling and finding every way to identify with the people in said story. When he felt like this, he went to his favorite book store, a old one with stairs up to the top, where light leaked through the windows and illuminated the spines of practically antique books. On the bottom floor was anything more popular, things that the customers came in looking floor. In the basement were dusty old biographies and paintings to decorate the paint peeling walls. It was not one of the newfangled more popular bookstores, but it is where the Doctor could spend an eternity, reading and getting ideas for his next piece, scribbling down ideas on his arms and the palms of his hands. 

 

When Clara and River returned to the apartment, Clara dismissed River to sleep for a while before they got a head start on the day, to grab life by its horns and be in charge. River was exhausted. She'd slept in many places, but her cot in her jail cell was harder than a rock, and was probably swelling with diseases and nothing River wanted to catch. She slept like a goddess, knowing that she was going to make life her bitch.


	6. dismissed my past, my name and my nightmares to history

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where they finally meet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I've reached the most amazing goal of 207 reads. That is simply fantastic! I plan that this chapter will be particularly long, and come in 3 separate updates (those will be marked with a tbc) All of that should be done by the end of the week, and I have a ton of time this weekend so there should hopefully be two chapters out by Monday of next week. Thank you all so, very, very much for your reads, and feedback and kudos! Again, I love criticism, and please tell me if there are any monstrous errors, etcetera etcetera.  
> <3 Kenzie!  
> -I've changed my email address for writing updates to searedintohishearts@gmail.com, for your information.-

"Books, River Song. Books to bring you what you need." Clara said. Clara had led River Song to a dusty old bookstore, something that you'd only find bookworms in. River had slept for the time that she needed, but she was still running on a bit too much coffee and adrenaline. Clara had found River a solution- if River Song somehow got inspired, then maybe she could get on the right track. River did amazing things with her life already, but she deserved so very much more, so very much more than she was letting herself have. Clara swept River up to the top floor, where light leaked in and there was an entire section on archaeology.  
The Doctor was on the bottom floor, looking through biographies and thinking, maybe, just maybe I could leave a legacy like these great ones. He wasn't convinced; after all, what was so special about him? He couldn't think of anything. But he opened one that he found interesting and he turned to a random page, learning a bit of information about one of the fantastic ones. It was a fine way to do it, but it was dark in the biography section, for hardly anyone ventured down there to read. It was very hard to see the words, and he didn't have enough money to buy more than one small used book on the top floor, which he hadn't been to yet.  
"One day," he muttered, "one day I shall be rich enough and I will buy every book, and I will have an enormous library full of them." Thinking of that inspired him, to write on scraps of paper until he found writing that someone wanted to take from him and grow it into a book. He hadn't found that person yet, but oh- he would, he would. All these greats, surrounded him in books: they hadn't gotten it the first time, let alone the first few times. He was going to get it, he promised himself, and then he could have a great towering library. He left the biography section, and went up from the main floor of some quality books, but mostly not so quality books to the top floor, where the dust seemed to be trapped in the rays of sunshine.  
Clara sat down in a window seat with a book on mathematics while River Song browsed. She did not notice when the bow tie wearing man with circular glasses on his nose came up the stairs. She would vaguely recognize that man, when she finally saw him, from the man who had passed by yesterday- the only man who had passed by from her yesterday. This was the man who had stood apart from the other, gaping civilians.

The Doctor browsed the shelves, seeing many different books that he had read and books that he wanted to read. His eyes skimmed over the curly haired woman, and after a moment, he recognized her from the woman he'd just seen, just out of the corner of his eye from yesterday. The woman who was making a scene and was enjoying it. He said nothing to her, all he did was watch. He watched the way she brushed her curls out of her vision, the color of her eyes, the way he could tell that she was someone like him, someone who was just running on fumes. She was the type of person who people looked at and thought to themselves- how much longer will it be until she drops? 

 

River looked peeked up over the shelves, almost bumping noses with this man who was looking at her. He was holding a book to his chest, as he had been yesterday. River Song would not have recognized him if he had not been wearing his hear the same way.

 

"Hello." He said. The Doctor's face was particularly close to River's. They both recognized each other, but for a moment they said nothing.  
"I know you!" River said. Clara perked up in the corner, but didn't interfere. Suppose she wanted to see how it was going to go down. It was interesting to her, and she did know that it would be very good for River Song to meet someone, and have a relationship with them.  
"And I you." The Doctor replied. "You were that woman, yesterday, the woman up on the building." He said. He may not have stopped to stare, but he had noticed. River made herself noticed by everyone. She hardly tried, sometimes. It was just something that she found in her small list of talents.  
"Yes, I was." River Song said.  
Her eyes were the capturing type of eyes, and the Doctor was staring into them. She stared back, and there was an awkward feeling in the air, but not the bad sort of awkward feeling. 

 

"What is your name?" River Song asked, after she realized that the silence was encasing them. 

 

"The Doctor. Just the Doctor." He said, still focusing on her. She smiled. 

"River Song," she said in her voice that was especially for the attractive ones. Clara kicked the back of her leg, and River kicked her back. The Doctor was too much in la-la land to actually notice that there were two women kicking each other in the leg. He wasn't very good around the female gender. 

 

"This is Clara." River introduced, as soon as the kicking stopped. The Doctor nodded his head at her, and she nodded back. She was a pretty girl, but she really wasn't much. She didn't seem to have all that much to her.

 

"Pleased to meet you, Doctor." Clara said, as River was frantically searching for words. It was a horrible feeling, everyone stuttering and trying to flirt and get the conversation going in the right direction, but it was taking a nosedive. 

 

"What are you looking to read?" The Doctor asked River Song. River smiled, saying; "well, I'm not sure. I'm hoping to find something good on archaeology, but you know that it wouldn't be the easiest to get into a good college, especially for a woman with a record like me."

 

The Doctor laughed. " I'm assuming you've found yourself in a situation like yesterday before, then." River nodded. 

 

"It's not like I try all that hard, I just like to have adventures, and sometimes that gets me into sticky situations. But Clara here, she's simply fantastic! She paid the bail and-" Clara kicked her again. "I must be going, River. You can either walk or get a taxi back home, but I'm sure you'll be fine." Clara huffed, exiting the little loft of probably more dust than books. 

 

"Tell me about yourself, River Song." He said. "I'm sure you have quite the story to tell. You seem like the type." The Doctor said. River nodded. "But I'd much rather hear the story of the man who goes by the Doctor. Couldn't you go by something more- I dunno, real person like?" River asked him, which earned her a smile. 

 

"Names have power, River Song. I've long dismissed mine to history, considering I never needed to be called a name way back then." The Doctor dismissed her question. "But first, River Song, you should tell me your story. It seems most important." He shrugged. "Ladies first?" 

 

River wouldn't have told her story to any random stranger, but this man seemed right. He looked into her eyes, and she could tell that he came not only with a pretty face, but with a creative mind and a past different than any other. So she began.


	7. eraser residue from removing my scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here is chapter 7. It's really short just because I'm a lil' bitch and I'm writing other stuff. There won't be an update this week because of TCAP, so yeah. I hope you enjoy it!  
>  <3 Kenzie

    _River Song was kidnapped when she was young. Very young, only five or six. She hardly remembered anything from it, just blackness and a endless sort of constant whimpering. When she was found, her parents were dead. According to the police, her parents had fought back, but the kidnapper had been armed and well trained in weapons. River Song hadn't seen any of it. She was confused, and she didn't understand what had really happened. Apparently she or someone else had blacked her out._

_River Song didn't just await for someone to find her. At only five years old, she found her way out. She used a blunt metal pole to get out into the open sunlight. She crawled up what seemed like miles of flights of stairs, into the sunlight. She hadn't been seen for weeks, and the brutal murder of her parents had made the search for her more popular. She was found, on a bright Saturday afternoon, with a bruise on her head and blood on her hands._

River told her story to the Doctor, but he showed no signs of being afraid of her, and nor did he find a way to quickly exit the conversation. Instead he nodded, with a listening look in his eyes, like he just wanted to understand. What kind of man just listens to a story like that?  _What kind of man asks strangers to tell them their stories?_   There was something fascinating about him, something unforgettable. 

    "But that, of course, was only me at a young age. After that, I was thrown into foster care, finally settling with a young couple by the time I was the age of twelve. By that time, I had already been arrested twice. I wasn't keeping up a good record, and my 'family' thought that they could change that." River continued, partially staring at her hands and partially staring at the Doctor's eyes. "They gave up on me, after a year, and I was sent to a strict boarding school." She was telling him it all, now, without a single lie. 

   No one hardly ever meets someone and just wants to spill their guts out to them, but sometimes, when you've cooped it up for so long, and they just seem like the kind of person that will hear and don't judge, you just ramble. River Song was telling him so very, very much, and she wasn't sure why. It was like she knew him somehow, like in another world, another life, they had an unbreakable connection.  The Doctor just kept nodding as he heard her tale. 

  "I was- heavily bullied when I was at Saint Agnes's, the boarding school. Someone had spilled to the others that I had something of a record, and information had spread. It wasn't the 'romantic' kind of bullying either; it's not like I wasn't able to fight back, because I did. The amount of black-eyes I gave to some of those girls are more than I could count on my fingers and toes." River said. She was silent for a moment. 

    "I'm not scared." The Doctor mumbled. He looked down. "What?" River asked, confused on what he was trying to say. 

     "I'm not scared of you. You are not a person who I withhold fear of. River Song, you are only a girl with a past, and so am I." The corner of his lip curled. She really, really did want to hear this man's story. There is nothing that says someone's past is more painful than another, they all blend together, indifferent. River could tell that his past was one of pain. Less blood than that which followed River, but still one of pain and loss. 

   "You are the only person who has ever said something like that to me." River remarked. The Doctor smiled at her. "There's a first time for everything, eh?"


	8. i'm only a new phoenix rising from the ashes; not much yet at all

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so forth do new beginnings start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here it is! Long awaited chapter 8: I apologize I haven't updated in so long, I've been working on two original stories and another medium size fic (shout out to my lovelies for hounding me for it,) which does happen to be dark!Eleven/River. But then, of course, I will have to worry about trigger warnings and smut scenes and -jim kirk voice- blahblahblah. But we (and by we I mean me,) hit 300 readers, which is literally, like, the most fantastic thing that has happened to me in the history of the universe. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and I will be updating all the other fics somewhere soon. I need someone to yell at me to work. Any takers?  
> [Again, constructive criticism, please be nice, yah. All of those things. Have a lovely day!]

It turned out that River learned nothing of that man, at that moment. Clara, apparently, had found enough of waiting for River to begin a conversation and (soon) finish one, and she returned upstairs to drag River off before she could hear a story she was mildly obsessed with. It was alright, though, for the welfare of both River and the Doctor- they had been rushing it all a teensy bit too fast. That was how most things went, however. The world was running at a speed too fast, becoming blurry like tears in the city at night. Running, moving, shaking: breathing, living. Never stopping. 

Instead of continuing the conversation, an agreement was decided on coffee at a relatively local shop was arranged. River was rushed out by Clara, giving the Doctor a scandalous smile returned with a similar one that earned them small gasps from others. Clara giggled and proceeded to cover her mouth. River and Clara abandoned the bookshop, leaving the Doctor to mull over all of what happened previously. River left with a lighter feeling in her chest, like bags of steel had been replaced with only a feather. Clara loved to make people smile, and the smile she saw presented then in River Song was a smile presented in that of new hope. 

The Doctor wasn't scared of that wild mess of curls and her story; after all, anyone who is followed by destruction, someone like him: said person would fear themselves more than anything else. And so forth was where the Doctor found his issue; he needed someone but only what followed him was a drowning fog, and it added weights to his shoulders. He was a man who carried the weight of the sun of the stars, but yet his lips carried the familiar phrase of 'I'm okay.' Yes, there was the ruler of the land of okay. He browsed for a while longer, finding one or two things to his liking. He purchased his books, and finding he had some change left, he decided to call an old friend.

"Sarah Jane Smith." He said, a small smile gracing his lips. The Doctor could hear her, too, crack a smile over the line. "Doctor," she began, "it had been ages," Sarah Jane said in a slightly reprimanding voice, but more a voice of happiness. "I had almost convinced myself that you had either spent all of your money on books or forgotten how to use a telephone." 

The Doctor laughed. "It may possibly have been both, Sarah Jane. I had to ask for help from another to dial- yes, I'm afraid, my memory is failing." Sarah Jane chuckled. "So what do I owe this call to, Doctor?" She asked. The Doctor had known Sarah Jane Smith for what seemed like a millennium, and she was one of the last left; Rose was gone, Donna was gone, and Amy and Rory were gone. His fingers had the digits to her phone number imprinted there, seemingly. 

"Nothing in specific, actually. I was just curious on how it is for you." The Doctor said. Sarah Jane snorted. "I know I owe this call to someone, Doctor, you never just call someone out of the blue. It is either you met someone or you miss someone. But I do enjoy hearing from you. Have you managed to get one of those pieces published somewhere yet?" She asked. 

The Doctor heaved a sigh. "No, I have not; and Sarah Jane, do not act as if you exist only for the purpose of listening to me!" He finished in a squeak. "Relax, I was kidding. I would fill you in on the events of my life, but I would rather hear about you. Is existence bearable?"

That was a frequent thing between the two. 'Is life good' wasn't the right thing to say, so they asked each other if existence was bearable. It was a simple question, and it wasn't weighted as much as 'how are you?' or 'are you ok?' those questions were weighted with a need to say yes, a need to say that you were okay, pressure to say the best for that person. 

"Somewhat," the Doctor replied. He was miles from okay, miles from good, but life was bearable. His day had gone in a better direction, since meeting River, but meeting someone that he liked drilled deep fear into his pores. "Life is bearable for me, but I still like the sun is darker for me than for the rest." The Doctor said. He felt, most of the time, that the sun shined less bright for him and the stars were dimmer for him. 

But someone, far away, future or past and all of the above, whispered to him that, even if he felt so, and even if it was so, the trees grew taller for him, and the buildings stood taller for him, and the ground was more stable for him. He was a man of the earth, this one time, not a man of the sky.


	9. blanket of memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 9 is finally here. It feels like ages since I actually last released a chapter. I've just been so busy with exams and homework and the responsibilities of life. Totally gross. Anyway, here it is, and I'm hoping to scratch together some much needed time to update the rest of the fanfictions. When I have free time, all I do is code and spend time with my girlfriend. Oops. This is becoming heavily unproductive. Here y'all go, anyway. I continue to repeat about constructive criticism, and you know what it is. I also need some love, sometimes, though! Xx Kenzie

He's restless at night; the nightmares flock around him wearing dark figures. When he does sleep without a nightmare, he dreams of his mother. It's rare that he dreams of his past, it towers behind him, shrouded by fog. He dreams of his mother sewing, lacing pale pink thread as decoration onto a lace doily. It's a very mother-like quality, sewing. He doesn't point out she has been pursuing projects that make her like an old woman. He remembers her eyes, and they reflect memories. He sees himself in her.

"Son, let me explain something to you." She said in her quiet, small voice. She was the type of woman who always held something to say and wanted the world to see her views. He nodded, his eyes brightening. He hoped always for a story when she chose to talk to him, and he hardly ever received so. He retained the bits of her advice, though. He would always even when he sat in the orphanage and went through counseling to help him with the pain. 

"This thread is supposed to stay in this cloth," she said. He nodded, although he was confused. She messed up occasionally, and she would cut it out and start over frequently. "But I mess up as anyone else, and I cut it out and begin again. My dear, the thread can be reused if cut out carefully enough. When cut out, it is thinner, however. It is not as much of the thread as it used to be. I invested myself in your father and many men before, becoming entangled with him like the cloth and this thread. I did this many times before, and every time there was some form of scissors that cut it. Sometimes it was me, and sometimes it was the other person. Sometimes it was another. You can't let yourself become entangled with someone and become thinner in the case that it ends.

The Doctor heard the words and remembered them, but he would be a thin string of thread in that case. He loved Amelia Pond like a best friend and he loved Rose Tyler like someone you wanted to wrap up in a blanket of memories and not let yourself forget them or let them forget you. Every time he invested himself in them like that thread in the cloth. Both times it was cut by a scissor of death, as they slipped away. 

He remembered the day that his father swam into the water and never came back. It was a sunny day as he was swallowed by the ocean. He met his wife by the ocean, and his wife lost him by the ocean. His mother died by her own suicide. She left a pile of doilies and things to be sold off. He was only six when his mother died, and he didn't really understand when there was a man in a blue uniform talking to him about how he would never see his 'mommy' again. He never called his mother 'mommy' and she didn't baby him. It was a relationship that feared the ocean and cared for each other. He was six, and he was never going to see his parents again. 

The Doctor wanted to tell River Song his story. He wanted to fall in love with someone. It didn't matter if it was River. He didn't know her yet, and it didn't matter who it was. 

Who are you? People asked that question more than frequently. They thought it to themselves. The question of who are you held a million other questions, and those were defining questions. Those questions sent people to hell or heaven, to rich or to poor. Who are you was a life defining question. The Doctor didn't even know who he was. He wasn't defined yet. He was a word with an absent definition in the space next to it. It was a consuming space, a space that consumed him and ruined him. 

He sometimes thought that falling in love with someone put a definition next to the absent space next to your name in the dictionary. They pulled tarps to reveal who you were with their love. For a while when he fell in love he began to define himself, and every time that he lost them, however the way he did, there was an eraser that took all he thought he was away.

\------------------

"This is a beautiful piece of work," the Doctor said to himself as he flipped through the book. It was a fascinating story written by an author by the name of Jack Harkness, and it told the story of a lonely man and his friends. He didn't have the money to purchase it, especially if he wanted to eat and continue to have heat in his apartment. It was more cold air blowing out of the vents, but heat was what he was paying for. 

Today was Tuesday, and coffee with River was on Thursday. It was easy to brush away thoughts of her and dismiss it for a while, but her smile and her story always lingered there. He had a hard time believing that it was so easy for someone to share a story like River had to him. Words flow like her name, sometimes. The Doctor was nervous and every moment he wasn't working or writing and then running the books by whoever he could, he was thinking. Not calm, relaxed thinking. Frantic thinking. 

He didn't know what to wear, and he didn't know what to say. He didn't know how nice she was going to look and if he should dress as nice or more casual. He didn't know if he should be a kind gentleman and pay, or if he should bring her flowers. Besides, it wasn't a date. Was it a date? No. Yes. It became more frantic as he ran more and more over his worries. The Doctor was an anxious man if he tried to. 

The fear and pain about all of his losses that constantly ran through his veins didn't make it any better, either. Coffee. Thursday. 

Packaged noodles for dinner yet again.


	10. half truths (lies lies lies)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot recount the times on all of my stories that I have been told I need longer chapters.  
> This rant will be suspended for another time. Anyway, here is chapter 10! [distant screaming] I've been thinking about setting up a schedule but I'm really not anywhere near to that level of productivity. I like to keep my readers on their toes with spontaneous hiatuses and cliff-hangers. Thanks to y'all for all your constructive criticism and reads and all those beautiful things you do to keep me writing this damned trainwreck. Enjoy!  
> Xx Kenzie

River Song used to wake up screaming. She could feel the cold fingers wrapping around her only in the darkness. The doctors used words to explain her faint remembrance of her horror story that she didn't understand. Selective amnesia. How does that work if patient remembers, but only in dream? She was a subject that everyone questioned. She was thrown and passed through foster care like a disease.  
  
When she was finally liberated from foster care, her hook-ups became a thing. The scars were okay when unexplained, but the screaming was enough for the men to leave. There was a high when they fucked her, and she'd forget, and when they left, she'd remember that she was a monster. Her name seemed so glorious when breathed on the lips of someone but yet her name wasn't even reality. She was just a ghost. It sometimes felt like the wind could pick her up and blow her into oblivion.  
  
A long, long time ago, River was told that half-truths and the like were simply lies. In that case, River's life, River's entire story was a lie. It was just nothing. She'd told the Doctor lies and she'd wrapped herself in coats and blankets of lies and tied shoes of lies since she was five. Was she going to go to coffee on Thursday and say more half-truths to the only man who wasn't scared of her? Was she really going to do that? River didn't think she was going to be able to.  
Sometimes it felt like River had been holding on to the edge of a ledge for all too long, and her fingers were loosening and beginning to sweat.  
\---------------  
  
The dress was too short; It didn't matter. All the men who'd care were fighting the war. "Wearing this dress is a mistake," River muttered to herself. She was greatly over thinking the idea of going to coffee. It wasn't really a date, after all. Neither of them had called it a date. Clara had attempted to help for a while, but had collapsed back onto the sofa after a while, flipping through a magazine. She'd lost interest.  
  
River's worries were many; and it was beginning to make her mind a gigantic mess of jitters and something that felt like butterflies. (More like angry, raging hornets.) She was the kind of girl who liked to stand out until the need to impress someone was overwhelming. She hadn't been sleeping, no nightmares, just the color silver and some unidentifiable noise. It was frequent, but River dismissed it with the hope that it was just something random her subconscious had conjured up. She tried to push it out of her thoughts as she tried on dresses and pondered the war. Clara spoke the words before River could.  
  
"There's a war over there, and the rich ladies here with their scholar suitors are going to socials and don't even have a though of it in their minds." Clara said. That was how it always seemed though, in history. There was always the rich and those smart enough to look away from the bombs and the torment of others. They were blessed, some would say. Others would say they were cursed.  
The war was being fought and River Song was going to coffee with a man she barely new. "Do people really do this? Go to coffee with strangers?" Clara sighed. "If you were afraid of not knowing him well enough, then why did you tell him all of that yesterday?" She asked. Something about what Clara had said had bothered River. It probably shouldn't have, but it had been made apparent that Clara had never been caught in that moment where it seems like you just can't stop talking.  
River said nothing. She wasn't going to let it bother her, because she was one quick to ignite without thinking. Today she wasn't going to let anything bother her. It was supposed to be a good day, and she was nervous. There was some standing expectation that River had been forming that on the noon hours before her 2 o' clock coffee date, her social outcast qualities and the like were just going to go away. \------------------  
  
Writers are disorganized people. Their minds are a wreck of mountains of discarded words, and when their words flow smoothly on to their stories, the words spill out of their mouths and stumble over each other. The Doctor spent the entirety of his pre-coffee date morning scrambling around with some overwhelming thoughts of serious things that kept him from doing serious things like putting on pants or brushing his teeth. So far, it was not going as well as planned. There was never that much of a plan, though for a writer. They write from their minds and even if their is a vague idea of needs and wants for a story, they don't plan much. Writers live their lives in the same manner, forgetting that they need to buy groceries and instead deciding to go sit in on something odd and eat something foreign and escape the whole amount of realness in the world.  
Then he couldn't remember the address of the coffee shop, and he couldn't even vaguely remember what part of town, and he hadn't written it down. Which required a call to Clara and spending money that he shouldn't have spent. She chastised him for being rude and ungentlemanly, etc etc, but the Doctor could hear her smile through the phone. Clara was the type who didn't need much because she could sit back and watch the rest of the world do what it does and enjoy it because there was so very much of it. It was a lovely quality to possess, probably.

The coffee shop was warm and welcoming when he entered, and River was sitting at a small table in the back, drawing something on the table with a pen that looked like it was supposed to belong at the register. Her hair seemed extra explosive, and her dress was again too short and what women cared to witness it were giving her nasty looks. Her eyelashes were the perfect length and she had great fingers- which was odd, to admit, but they were just the right color and he damned himself to hell for ending up here again but the Doctor just wanted to be around her, because she was just so god damned beautiful.


	11. dreaming of angels on the moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is chapter 11! After FIFTEEN YEARS of not updating, I'm finally on break which means I'll be updating more frequently. I also had some time to update before, but, the Supernatural finale kind of ruined my life? oops. We're finally getting into the good bits that I originally wanted to write but that accidentally took me ten chapters and sixteen other fics that I started.  
> Anyway, love all of you! Remember I love and NEED constructive criticism b/c I'm a piece of shit writer.  
> \- xx Kenzie

  
The Doctor distinctly remembered the first time he had finished Amelia's book. It was the day after her funeral, and he realized that her memory would want him to finish that one last chapter he'd always refused to finish.

"Amelia, I am NOT finishing it!" The Doctor would yell, with his Ponds giggling in the background. Amelia would pretend to be angry, and Rory would watch the scenario like it was his favorite television show.

"Doctor, I just want you to finish the book! I worked oh so very hard on it!" She said. "I just don't like endings. I am refusing to finish this book, it's too lovely! I just don't want it to end, Pond." The Doctor said.

The Doctor didn't want the picture of River to end, either. Her mind seemed distant as she drew with the pen. Her strokes seemed deliberate and she seemed just so quiet. She had an air to her that didn't match the personality that her dress and how she acted towards other gave the impression of. River looked up, and as she noticed him, the Doctor gave a little wave that he hoped looked cute rather than awfully embarrassing.

He sauntered over and took a seat across from her. She smiled. "So I do believe that our meeting went a little too fast." She laughed lightly. The Doctor smiled in return. "It was a heat of the moment thing," he replied, partially defending it and partially agreeing with her, "it was still superb, though." The Doctor said.

River nodded in agreement, staying silent. "I'm about to order, what do you like?" She asked. "Chai tea, I suppose," was the reply. River departed to order the drinks. The Doctor was beginning to realize how awful he was at first dates. Or dating at all.

It was not his skill, but he hoped he was doing okay. Rose had been a unexpected date, and Sarah Jane had directed him on what to do, mostly. River returned a few moments later.

"Tell me something happy about yourself," he blurted. River seemed surprised. The Doctor was quick to explain himself. "All you've told me is of the darkness and struggles you've had, and I know there has got to be something unforgettable and lovely in your life." River licked her lips, tilting her head to the ceiling as if she was looking to heaven for answers. In honesty, the Doctor wouldn't have quite known what to say either.

For a moment, River said nothing. She was searching her memories for something to say, so she didn't seem like such a sad and lost person. "The last thing that my mother said to me," River took a breath, "was a story. A story about a girl who woke up in the morning and instead of her waking up with the sun, the sun woke up with her. After that day, the sun stayed with her and kept the darkness from her. And she told me, at the end, that I was that girl, and the sun would protect me from the dark." River said. "It was the strangest thing that she ever said to me, but I thought of it, every day, that I thought the darkness was going to form bars around me and trap me forever." She said.

"And you, Doctor?" River Song asked. He smiled in reply. "Oh, damnit, I walked right into that." He shook his head. "Amelia Pond dedicated a story to me." He whispered to himself. "A girl who I cared about very much and I still care about a great deal dedicated a story to me, and I will forever let her be trapped in my memory." Saying those words hurt him. It was oddly bittersweet.  



	12. all the pretty things that we could be

  
It went altogether too fast. Conversation incredibly too fast but yet so engaging, sparking new topics and every turn. The Doctor began to notice small details about River, like how her eyes literally seemed to sparkle when she talked, especially when she talked about the queerest sorts of things. Like how little bits of the skin around her nails were painted red, as if she'd done them in a rush. The course of the date had entirely too many lattes and probably a little over-sharing, but it was just so _lovely._ Having someone to talk to, no matter what the topic was, is always such a precious thing. It is usually taken for granted, but River and the Doctor did not. Talking to her was so very familiar, like he'd having coffee shop dates with her for his whole life. Maybe it was just the feeling of watching a girl and feeling those little wings on your shoes, lifting you up, up, up that made it so familiar.

Butterflies are very pretty creatures, until it feels like they have chainsaws and are angry- and on top of that, trapped in your stomach. The Doctor asking River to join him again for the movies on- quote on quote "one of the Fridays, y'know, any one of them," must've put those butterflies there. Clara was such a gossip, she was going to eat the entire deal up. It was such a very unique feeling for River, and she was so worried that she was going to mess it up and do it all wrong. It's not like she didn't have experience with men- she did, it was mostly just the sex part that she was more educated on. There was an actual _boy,_ who wanted something from her other than for her to fuck him. Not that she didn't have experience with the ladies too; but that was a little more, um, secretive.

They probably had said too much, even at the start, but words are like a waterfall, and how on earth do you stop that? As the two went their separate ways, the Doctor lifted River's hand up to his lips and kissed it, ever so lightly. So very gentle for someone like River, so very gentle for all the hell that River remembered. Then, then mostly flirty and barely seductively, the Doctor whispered in River's ear, "and I will see you again soon, River Song." Who knew a writer with no apparent social skills could make River blush like a schoolgirl. She could barely keep herself from skipping home.  


\-------------------------

The Doctor couldn't hear the sounds of the city on the way home. He could only think of the blush that River had when he kissed her hand, and he wished that he had kissed her cheek, or kissed her lips. He quieted his thoughts, telling himself that the other options were for sure all too fast. But he couldn't stop thinking about her eyes, or her hair or the feeling that he had when she smiled.

"I am not falling for River Song, oh definitely not," the Doctor said to himself a little too loud for a crowded area, receiving himself a few odd looks. He didn't mind, he was floating on cloud nine. Goodness, her hair was so beautiful and she dressed so perfectly and when she laughed, it was like the entire world stopped. Being broken wasn't a beautiful thing, but River Song found a way to make her brokenness unrelated to her beauty.

The Doctor fell slightly back into reality, remembering that he did have things to do and strolling like a somewhat drunk tourist (it was far too early in the day to be drunk, however,) wasn't going to help him at all. He had books to write and things to do, because reality was something waiting always just behind the corner. But as reality drowned him, he still could not help to think about River Song.

Maybe he did just have a taste for wild girls that pulled him closer with every breath they took in the same room as him. Maybe he was dumb and lonely, or maybe he was truly falling for her, and that was oh so fast, even for someone like him.

But what the Doctor was most afraid of was another Rose, or another Amelia. It didn't matter if he loved them romantically or platonically, they always seemed to leave. Like he was some kind of poison, some type of person that repelled beautiful and wild people. Especially when he most wanted them to stay.

Or maybe he was just a dumb man that didn't understand himself enough, let alone understand the people he loved. Or maybe he didn't love River, or maybe he didn't understand love at all. But he couldn't stop thinking about the beautiful and unique things that him and River could be together. All the pretty things that they could be together.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback? Comments? Swears about my writing talent?  
> I'll take anything! Leave me a comment or email me at  
> kurostucklockedhuntingdemon@gmail.com


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